


Giggles

by Dragonsquill (dragonsquill)



Series: Hobbit ABCs [7]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Cultural Differences, Everybody Lives, Ficlet, Friendship, Gen, Prompt Response
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 22:23:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3954001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsquill/pseuds/Dragonsquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trait Tauriel found most admirable in dwarves was their capacity for laughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giggles

**Author's Note:**

> Hobbit ABCs prompt response from thatgorgeousarchangel on tumblr: Giggles, Kili and Tauriel friendship

The trait Tauriel found most admirable in dwarves was their capacity for laughter.

She was nearly two thousand years old, and she’d never heard as much merriment as she did in the halls of Erebor, upon the return of the small Company’s friends and family. 

It was loud to the point of raucous, filled with rough hugs and crashing foreheads and shouts of adulation. She had been sent as an envoy for the Mirkwood because of her friendship with the second heir of Erebor, and in his note Kili had tried to warn her that it would all be very “loud and look a bit violent, or so Bilbo said about seeing dwarves at a party for the first time,” but it was more than that.

It was alive and joyful and exhausting in a way nothing had been in all her long days under the sharp and sedate rule of her own king.

“All right then?” asked a deep voice at her elbow, and Tauriel looked down to meet Kili’s laughing eyes as he held a mug of ale out to her. He still had to use a crutch to get around properly, but he was healing, and a member of the Company - Bifur she thought - had carved such a beautiful and intricate one for him that it looked more like an accessory than a medical necessity. “I tried to warn you we’re a bit much for gentler folk.”

She smiled and took the ale - a strong brew made from lichen that grew deep in the mountain, and she knew enough to drink it in moderation - and shook her head. “I’m fine,” she assured him. “I enjoy how … free you all are, with your feelings.”

Kili glanced around them. His eyes lingered longest on his mother, the lovely dwarf in deep conversation with his brother Fili. She was the first female dwarf Tauriel had ever seen, tall like her son but with broader features, her dark hair wavy like her eldest’s, intricately and beautifully braided with her beard. “We don’t see a reason to hide when we’re happy,” he said quietly, and his thoughtfulness reminded her of that first conversation in the dungeons, about fire moons and guarding Men, the first time her heart had gone from quietly dreaming of seeing more than the forest to actively yearning for it. “Happiness can be rare at times; we choose to embrace it when we have it.”

“And sadness?” she asked, because her people lived so long that of course they knew that emotion well; but like joy, they did not express it as she had seen the dwarves do in the wake of the battle, weeping over their lost loved ones with no sense of shame.

“That as well." Kili looked up at her, a small smile tugging at his lips. "But I like this better, personally.”

She smiled back. She’d heard Dis say to her son that his smile was _contagious_ ; she had to agree. 

Laughter broke out on the other side of the room as Bofur burst into song. He was surrounded by a group much less posh than that around Kili’s mother and brother, a rough and tumble extended family of miners who spilled beer and danced on the tables. Kili chuckled as Bombur’s wife joined in on a merry tune of sparkling gold and deep places. Tauriel watched and cautiously sipped her drink.

“Do you know, I’ve never heard you laugh?”

Tauriel blinked and looked back down. Kili was studying her earnestly, effortlessly looking as young now as he had sounded wise moments ago. “I …” she trailed off, not knowing how to respond. How to explain to someone mortal, someone who had courted death only months before, what it is to be immortal?

What it is to see years like water, ever flowing.

“The elves in Rivendell laughed sometimes, when they weren’t looking like someone pissed in their wine,” Kíli continued, and Tauriel felt a little bubble of something in her chest at that thought. “But I’ve not heard a single Mirkwood elf laugh." He raised his eyebrows at her. "Is there some law against it? Thou shalt not laugh in the presence of his majesty’s elk?" 

It was a poor joke, and all Tauriel meant to grant it was an exasperated roll of her eyes, but then Kili winked at her.

Or tried to.

His eye didn’t quite close properly, and it screwed his mouth up on one side, and honestly what he probably thought looked like a saucy wink came out as a sort of cheerful grimace that made the bubble in her chest grow and burst forth as a high, ridiculous little _giggle_.

It felt _wonderful._

Kili’s grimace turned into a wide, pleased grin, and Tauriel giggled just a little bit more.

She felt young and alive and a little bit wild, laughing among the boisterous joy of dwarves.


End file.
